"Surface is a real business. In an environment in which there’s 350 million PCs sold, I don’t think Surface is going to dominate volume, but it’s a real business," commented Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer in a recent interview with TechRadar.

He explains, "Increasingly, people access the same content and services from multiple devices or use more than one device at a time. [Having] the same look and feel shortens the learning curve and creates a more seamless user experience."

Microsoft is rumored to be working on a Surface Phone, a device designed to encourage third party OEMs to step up their game. When it comes to the Surface tablet, Mr. Ballmer says it showed OEMs what could be done with a Windows 8 tablet. He comments, "I’m super-glad we did Surface. I think it is important—and not just for Microsoft but for the entire Windows ecosystem—to see integrated hardware and software."

The CEO claims that Microsoft understands very well what consumers wants, but sometimes is just a bit lacking in execution.

He remarks, "So is there a lack of understanding, or in some cases do I wish our execution had been better? I would say the latter. In cases where we’ve embraced end-user needs and really sort of dived in, like the things that we’ve done with Kinect and the Xbox, I think we’ve done a heck of a job."

While no official announcements have been made Microsoft has come under fire for reportedly locking out used games from its next generation gaming console, the Xbox 720. The console, which is expected to launch later this year, is also criticized as being harder to develop for and less popular than Sony Corp.'s (TYO:6758) upcoming PlayStation 4, according to industry sources who've worked with early dev kits.

You can access files from anywhere via a metro app as long as it uses “ filepicker” utility (ie: user intervention). You cannot build a metro app that will automatically access these areas of your disk without user intervention. This is for security purposes and is generally a good thing, however this makes it incredibly hard to build a playlist the persists after the app is closed and repopulates when the app is reopened as the files are inaccessible during automatic repopulation.